Your E-Book Is Reading You Analysis

1034 Words5 Pages
In her article, “Your E-Book is Reading You,” Alexandra Alter informs her readers about the information being collected by the companies making e-readers. But why would this matter to anyone today? Many companies collect data on a person’s habits, online, at retail stores, at work and at home. This has become part of everyday life. The article states facts that aren’t surprising to most readers and likely won’t likely change the readers’ habits. Alter begins by stating some of the facts collected by some e-reader companies. These facts are easy to expect and could even be extrapolated or guessed by avid readers. Even some non-readers could expect some of the facts listed in the article. “For example, Nook users who buy the first book in a…show more content…
“In the first quarter of 2012, e-books generated $282 million in sales, compared with $230 million for adult hardcover books, the Association of American Publishers recently found.” (Alter) This comparison gives absolutely no information at all. It compares a listing of the total number of books bought digitally, to a list of only adult hardcover books. There are more than adult hardcover books in print, there are children's books, teen books, fiction books, non-fiction books, hardcover books and soft cover books and more being printed and sold daily at book stores. Great that e-books as a whole has more sales in three months than a fraction of all physical books. This is a useless fact that is used to show how great the e-book industry has become, but is only showing the minuteness of the same…show more content…
There is very little indication of the reliability of the facts stated. No links to proof of the facts or any indication that the statistics weren’t pulled out of thin air. It is quite difficult for a reader, especially an academic reader, to believe anything without some form of citation. The article may have been made to be read by any passer-by but how can that person ever really know if what they are reading is truth or just some conglomeration of words strung together by a journalist that needs to make a deadline to put food on the table. Alter should have stated either within or outside of her article where it may be found that, “the first thing that most readers do upon finishing the first "Hunger Games" book is to download the next one,” on the Nook. Doing a search on Google could likely find the information not everyone who can browse the internet knows the ins and outs of designing an accurate Google search phrase that would bring up this information in a timely
Open Document